Themed Cardio Tennis Clinics in the Fort Lauderdale Area
The biggest of the Compact totes: one enormous main space that swallows racquets, kit, shoes and the remainder of the day. Interior pockets, structured lightweight fabric, handles meant for carrying rather than admiring, in black; it intends to walk you round Quetzaltenango, and I was there for most of it.
Yonex Compact Oversize Tote Bag: Oh, I remember when they laid these stones — beautiful afternoon, the neoclassical columns were so crisp and white before the pigeons got involved. Parque Centro América is still the largest central park in Central America, which frankly I told the architects was an ambitious goal and they really delivered. Looked better then, but I'll admit the fountain's held up.
Yonex Compact Oversize Tote Bag: I was at the inaugural season here — sat three rows from the front, and let me tell you, the acoustics in this neoclassical opera house were immaculate even before they'd finished touching up the plasterwork. Built in the early twentieth century, still the cultural crown of Xela, though the seats were plusher when I knew them personally.
Yonex Compact Oversize Tote Bag: Minerva and I go way back — lovely woman, very into owls — so when President Estrada Cabrera commissioned these arcade temples across Guatemala in her honour at the turn of the twentieth century, I showed up to this one and thought the proportions were just right. Still do, honestly, though the surrounding park had more pageantry in those early fair-day crowds.
Yonex Compact Oversize Tote Bag: I rode this electric line — the Los Altos Railway — back when it was a novelty, connecting Quetzaltenango to the coast between 1930 and 1933, which is a tragically short run for such a charming little train. A landslide and the Great Depression finished it off, and I said at the time that was a terrible double-bill of disasters. The museum keeps the memory alive, though nothing beats the original hum of those motors.
I have carried a great many bags, and I mean that literally — I was in the room when the Guatemalans were arguing about the tram, and I had something over my shoulder then too.
This one is the oversize Compact tote: one big main compartment that takes racquets, a change of clothes, shoes and everything else the day turns out to require, with interior pockets so the small things stop migrating to the bottom.
The fabric is light but structured, which is the trick of the thing — it holds its shape when it is half empty instead of folding into a sad sack in the boot of the car.
Clean lines, no armoured panels, no wheels, no straps you have to think about; handles that sit right and a shape that does not swing into your leg on a staircase. It is a black bag, which means it goes from the court to a table without announcing where it has been.
What makes a tote work is honest carry.
And because it is a tote rather than a racquet bag proper, it does not have thermal lining or a dedicated ventilated shoe tunnel — it has room, and room used well beats a compartment for everything.
Lovely neoclassical city, all that grey stone around Parque Centro America, and I remember distinctly the fuss over the Templo de Minerva — a triumphal arcade raised to the goddess of wisdom, in the highlands, and quite a lot of people at the time asking whether wisdom was strictly what was on offer. But the story I always tell is the railway.
Quetzaltenango and I go back.
They electrified a line down from Xela toward the coast and it ran from 1930 to 1933 before the whole thing was finished off, and I rode it, and I have never been more sure that I was on something that was not going to last. Three years. They keep what is left in a museum now.
I was there for the opening. I was also there for the closing. It was a very short line.
